With accusations of sexual harassment and worse, the most awful thing someone could put in the article was a woman was reprimanded for almost starting a fire in her living quarters and women are not allowed male visitors or overnight guests (which is in line with their culture and laws and was not uncommon for many groups of women in the U.S.up until not so long ago and I'll bet can still be found in some dormitories at colleges).?

I was pretty sure it should be "female flight attendants," not "woman flight attendants." "Woman" used as an adjective or noun adjunct sounds awkward and derogative to me (the easiest example I can think of is "woman driver"). Then I did a little google and fell into an internet grammar wormhole. Apparently "woman" is often allowed in this context in the style books of reputable news sources. I still don't like it.

Yes, but at such (often but not always religious) schools the policy is nearly already gender-symmetric (except AFAIK schools don't tend to bother to prohibit same sex overnight guests).

Also, the policies are rarely enforced, and frequently have more to do with building security (guests must be registered, etc.) than anything else.

And frankly, I don't understand why we allow college dorms housing what are legally adults, to make any requirements a landlord wouldn't be able to make. Especially when schools have residency requirements or off-campus housing isn't a realistic option.

Different country, though they're close to each other. Part of the Saudi Arabian shoreline is in between, though I've seen on older maps that Qatar and UAE apparently once bordered each other.

As for the working conditions, I always suspected that cruise ships were this way (but I really have nothing to corroborate that).

Speaking of the Arabian Peninsula, I have an old Nat'l Geographic globe from the mid-1960s. UAE was then Trucial States. Oman was Muscat and Oman, and the globe depicts it as narrow shading along the coastline, rather than showing actual boundaries (perhaps to differentiate from Oman proper though the globe isn't quite that old). Part of present-day Yemen was "South Arabia" and is similarly shown as existing only along the coastline.

The US has 1 mio immigrants each year, Qatar has 1.7 mio inhabitants. Here's a batshit idea: the US could offer all Qataris US citizenship, the offer limited to one year. That would sort thing out... Oh wait, is that one of those countries where woman can't get on a plane without signed consent from a male relative?

Boycott Qatar? At least spread the message so that people who go to work there know what they're getting themselves into, and know to send their salary out of the country each month to prevent it being seized. It sounds onerous to work there - but just possibly within the bounds of cultural differences - although the CEO of the airline sounds like an utter jerk. Qatar has different laws and different views about sex before marriage compared to Europe, America or most of the rest of the world. If people from Europe go in with their eyes open and take the view that it's a useful training experience and something to do for a year or two to get a line on their CV before moving on to a European or US (or anywhere else in the world) airline with proper working practices and employer relations, for some people it could be a tolerable experience.

That's not meaningful. They get their revenue from sources other than their airlines, and frankly the two dozen white people who do aren't going to have any impact.

Since when is a boycott an effective measure in a global economy? That's been the whole point of globalization- the demobilization of local and culturally specific factors inhibiting trade. Boycotts are the actions of the lazy and the impotent. Not that I have anything against the impotent, we're all largely impotent- but I'm against the delusion that we accomplish anything by specific inaction.

Qatar is the venue for the 2022 Football World Cup which, for those of you who know anything about football, is a big thing. If they want to host one of the biggest sporting events in the World they should expect people to start to look at them closely. I suspect this article will be the first of many. Whether it changes anything... well, I hope so.